The interactive entertainment market is a fast growing segment of the entertainment industry. By 1998, the market had experienced its third straight year of double digit growth. In 1998 alone, video game sales exceeded $3.7 billion and computer games sales exceeded $1.8 billion. In 1998 alone, about 181 million units of PC and video games were sold in the United States.
From the early 1960's, interactive entertainment services ranged from mainframe, to video, and PC-based platforms. Sony, Nintendo and Sega, among others, have introduced interactive entertainment systems.
In 1989, Nintendo launched its popular Game Boy series of handheld interactive game devices. Nintendo released their Color Game Boy device in 1999. Although Nintendo's Game Boy series has not generally employed the most advanced technology available, it has adapted the available technology to meet the specific demands of the gaming market. For example, rather than using the higher resolution display devices available, Nintendo has adopted lower resolution screens, providing greatly extended battery life. It is believed that by June 2000, Nintendo had sold over 100,000,000 Game Boy units.
Due to its improved graphics quality and quality of the playing experience, implementing graphics quality comparable to the Nintendo Game Boy Advance system would impose even greater network bandwidth and resource demands than those associated with Gameboy, if deployed over a wireless network of the type and in a manner conventionally known.